Sara Grant

Sara Grant, RSCJ (19 December 1922 – 2002) was a British Indologist, Christian missionary, and one of the pioneers of interreligious dialogue in the twentieth century.

She taught philosophy in Mumbai and Pune for several years, and spent many years as co-acharya of the Christa Prema Seva Ashram in Pune, which combines the Hindu ashram and sannyasa model and Christian monasticism.

Career Sr Sara Grant came as a missionary to India in 1956, to head the newly formed Department of Philosophy at Sophia College (University of Mumbai), Mumbai run by Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, here she taught for many years. Under the influence and guidance of Fr Richard De Smet, SJ, she studied Sanskrit and did a doctorate in the University of Bombay on the concept of relation in Adi Sankaracarya, (ca. 700 C.E.), the authoritative Hindu exponent of the doctrine of non-duality (Advaita). Here she also became close friends with Swami Abhishiktananda, a French Benedictine monk, whose biography she later published in 1998, as Swami Abhishiktananda: The man and his message. Her work with Sankara, and focus on the understanding of Advaita Vedanta, culminated in the drawing parallels with Christian doctrines.

She became a member of the ecumenical religious community (Anglican and Catholic) of the innovative Christa Prema Seva Ashram (CPS), Shivajinagar, Pune - India. During these years, she also taught Indian philosophy at Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth, Pune, the Catholic Pontifical Institute of Philosophy and Theology.

She was invited on occasion to lecture on Sankaracarya at Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, where she reports that her interpretation of Sankara was well received.

Sara Grant was one of the most active Catholics in the area of interreligious dialogue in the second half of the twentieth century. She liked to describe herself as a 'Non-Dualist Christian' (see the bibliography below).

Her spiritual autobiography, Towards an Alternative Theology: Confessions of a Non-Dualist Christian was published in 1991. It was originally the Teape Lectures delivered at the University of Cambridge in 1989. In 1993 she received the first "Ba-Bapu Puraskar" Prize by Gandhians in Pune, followed by "eminent Ecumenical Educator Award", by the All-India Association for Christian Higher Education.